Ocala, Florida – The late Chicago Mayor, Richard J. Daley, had a saying I loved. “Good government is good politics and good politics is good government.” It was a memorable Chicago way of saying take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves.
The late mayor is remembered, particularly by outsiders, for financial corruption in the last of the functional big city machines. Still, had I lived in Chicago as an adult during his era, I would have voted for him. Though no significant scandal attached to him personally, he was not much interested in operatives taking kickbacks if they, A) delivered the vote and B) took care of the needs of the people of their precinct or ward. The quickest way to get dumped from the organization was to have persistent, unaddressed public complaints about garbage, clutter, crime, snow removal, or other basic city services in your ward. This is why alderman and precinct captains frequently would provide trash cans and shovels to the public, themselves. One of my favorite Daley stories is that he would have his driver vary his routes to City Hall each day and take notes about things he saw along the way that needed to be addressed – potholes, sloppily landscaped medians, accumulation of litter – and start the day at the office by seeing that these things were taken care of.
Daley Senior was not much of an ideologue. He built his machine by insisting on hands-on, responsive community service. He took care of the basics and never left the city unprepared. Even in the left-wing rioting at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Daley took the sauce out of the rioters when he gave his famous orders to Chicago Police: shoot to wound looters and shoot to kill arsonists. Can you imagine any Democratic Mayor today giving such orders? It is hard to imagine the toughest of Republicans doing so in this age. Shoot, in a lot of left-wing cities, they prosecute those who seek to preserve order and let criminals go, unmolested.
California officials should have studied why Daley was absolutely untouchable during his tenure. He never cut the budget for snow removal (fire prevention), he would never have let a vital major reservoir run empty for nearly a year, he would have scoffed at “environmentalists” who demanded an end to brush-clearing, controlled burns, and basic forestry mitigation tactics. He knew that if you don’t take care of the basics, the consequences will overwhelm you.
California officials are all about boutique ideological pretensions and completely uninterested in the boring work of being competent with the basics of government stewardship. They are far too busy “saving the planet” and pushing for “social justice” to do anything so mundane as their jobs. It is all fantasy…all fluff and no stuff. Now that they are caught once again, they blame their very own Moriarty, climate change, for their failures at their most basic responsibilities. It is not playing so well this time. Voters are sick of hearing that climate change is responsible for crime spikes, every weather-related phenomenon that has been going on since time immemorial, inflation, unemployment, war, and whatever else wokester officials manage to screw up. The folksies are getting wise to the gag and are beginning to understand that most woke officials are just living a Calvin & Hobbes fantasy without the humor.
Some optimists think this may be the event that turns California red – or at least purple. It ought to, but I doubt it. Oh, it will turn the state a little redder, but I see no flip ahead. I spend a good chunk of time in California. The LA and San Francisco areas are literally unhinged. I have interacted with more than a few leftists in those most populated areas of the state. They are not rational at all, just filled with nihilistic hate for Republicans. For a lot of them, the idea of voting for a Republican is as viscerally horrifying as freeing a slave was to a plantation owner. They can’t say exactly why. All their reasons amount to so much hysterical spluttering and denial. Basically, they think Republicans are icky and just not their kind. California has suffered badly this time for its woke governance, but I doubt it has suffered enough to lead a majority to try something different than massive failure alongside massive preening.
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During my pilgrimage, I walked 60 miles along the Pacific Coast Highway, starting at the Santa Monica Pier going west, finally turning inland near Oxnard. Ah, how glorious it was to be lulled to sleep every night by the soothing rhythm of the Pacific waves! I spent a couple of days in a homeless encampment in Malibu – and even that was tonier than any other I’ve seen. You undoubtedly get the wrong mental image when I say encampment. It was just individual camps along a creek up in the woods, with never more than one other camp visible from yours. When I first found the place, shortly after I arrived, a fellow on a bike pulled up. We chatted for a few minutes when I realized, “Holy cow, this guy is interviewing me.” After checking my bona fides, my attitude, and my temperament, the fellow welcomed me to the community and told me where I could and could not camp. Then he told me if I wanted, he could get me a list of Malibu residents who left out food or booze (both hidden) for the residents. In exchange, we were not to cause any trouble or embarrassment to the community – and the homeless policed it themselves. Get rowdy and get kicked out in a heartbeat. It was a nice couple of days. It touched me deeply when the fellow on the bicycle begged me to stay, telling me what a great addition to the community I was. But I was on a pilgrimage, not looking for a landing place. With sadness, he told me I was always welcome back. It was nice to know that I had access to oceanfront property in one of the toniest towns in the country.
It has been bitter watching video of some of my favorite spots from memory utterly destroyed. Not nearly as bitter as for the people who lived there, but sorrowful, nonetheless. I know the woke emphasis on silly things and neglect of serious responsibility played the biggest role in this disaster, but I hate it when I see people on our side gloating or taunting the suffering. Yes, more than a few of the people involved are insufferable (many there were nice to me until they found I was a serious Christian – then they either tolerated me or spewed venom about how hateful I must be). But liberally sprinkled into the mix, like leaven in the dough, were people of great good will and kindness. I can’t help but think of my Christian namesake, Abraham, asking God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of even 10 righteous men. I found a lot more than ten righteous people in Santa Monica and Malibu.
Some of the anomalies of the fire have sparked some wild theories beyond the climate change nonsense. Fire, on a large scale, is very mercurial. Until you have experienced it, what you think fire is and what it actually is are two very different things. In one house fire, back in the mid-70s, I saw an old-fashioned wall telephone – plastic outside with metal components inside, completely melted. Less than a foot away on a shelf was a rubber child’s toy, not even scorched.
In the late 80’s I saw a wall dividing rooms that was burnt down to frame – except for a painting on the wall, which was untouched by fire and barely scorched.
Touring the Santa Clara fire zone where entire neighborhoods were incinerated nearly a decade ago, I was astounded to see a car at the curb with an aluminum wheel melted – and less than three feet away, a delicate flowering bush untouched. That led me to look on in amazement at the rubble of all the houses burned to ashes to the foundation – with the trees in the yard swaying gently in the breeze, their leaves vital, healthy and green. It was that way all the way through. What man built was utterly destroyed while the flora God created was largely untouched.
Big fires do not indiscriminately consume everything in their path. They act almost as if they had consciousness, taking one type of thing and leaving another, taking an entire block while leaving one house on it untouched. It is striking when you see it, but it is not unusual. Rather, it is characteristic of the way big fires behave.
Besides the almost intentional incompetence in containing the fires, I suspect some of these things may be terrorism. I think sometimes what I would do if I were a terrorist. Yeah, suicide bombers have a distinct impact, but I would not use them as much. If I were a bad guy, I would want to cause as much damage as I could with as little chance of capture as I could manage. That way, I could use terrorist operatives over and over. Infrastructure would be my key target. We know that tons of Jihadist and Chinese operatives have come across the border illegally during the Biden years. I think they are probably just activating seriously – and we better get real serious right quick about defense and tough on crime if we are going to weather it all.
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Over the last seven years God has shown us the extent of the rot at the heart of our culture and the leadership of our Churches. This year, as the power of darkness is broken, I think God is going to show us the depth of that rot – and you are going to be shocked at how deep it goes and how ugly it actually is. Do not get lost in sorrow as it all begins to come out. God is not trying to dishearten you; He is showing you what we need to tackle – and we must buck up if we are going to make it.
Many of you know that I have significant, irreconcilable differences with Mark Mallet on eschatology. That prevents us from collaborating on anything heavy. But Mallett does some very good work on a lot of things. I particularly liked his latest column on what the heart of Christianity is and must be. This is the key to how we address the issues ahead of us this year. Next right step by next right step, focusing on the simple things. If we do that, our generous God will multiply our little efforts into staggering abundance.
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Plans are moving apace for our CORAC National Conference this summer. We are planning it for the weekend of July 11-13 in Atchison, Kansas. Though it is early in the planning stages, both national pro-life leader David Daleiden and Kansas State Senator Mike Thompson have confirmed as speakers. Thompson was the long-time chief meteorologist at several Kansas City network TV affiliates and is an expert on the excesses of the fake environmentalists. He was the first person I asked, as I think the leftist’s primary refuge as most of their incoherent ideology collapses, will be trying to gaslight us all on climate change. I want CORAC members to be well-versed in the actual science and data so we can chase the loonies out of that refuge as well. We need sound, serious policy rather than the serial doom fantasies the left likes to peddle. I’ll keep you advised as we get things nailed down.
Also, I am in the midst of touring from the Eastern seaboard to the west right now. If you would like to host a visit, contact my scheduler, Mary Lapchak, at lapchakma@gmail.com.
If communication goes out for any length of time, meet outside your local Church at 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings. Tell friends at Church now in case you can’t then. CORAC teams will be out looking for people to gather in and work with.
Find me on Twitter at @JohnstonPilgrim
The Corps of Renewal and Charity (CORAC)
18208 Preston Rd., Ste. D9-552
Dallas, Texas 75252
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